I have reached an agreement with the Radical Left Democrats for a Debate with Comrade Kamala Harris. It will be Broadcast Live on ABC FAKE NEWS, by far the nastiest and most unfair newscaster in the business, on Tuesday, September 10th, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Rules will be the same as the last CNN Debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone except, perhaps, Crooked Joe Biden. The Debate will be “stand up,” and Candidates cannot bring notes, or “cheat sheets.” We have also been given assurance by ABC that this will be a “fair and equitable” Debate, and that neither side will be given the questions in advance (No Donna Brazile!). Harris would not agree to the FoxNews Debate on September 4th, but that date will be held open in case she changes her mind or, Flip Flops, as she has done on every single one of her long held and cherished policy beliefs. A possible third Debate, which would go to NBC FAKE NEWS, has not been agreed to by the Radical Left. GOD BLESS AMERICA!... and the press would blanch it until it came out sane:
CNN described that rambling, insult-laden, conspiracy-riddled wall of text ... by writing, “Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced he has ‘reached an agreement’ to participate in a September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that ‘the rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone.’”This form of sanewashing happens after the fact: Trump goes off half-cocked and the press makes his pronouncements appear bland and reasonable. But there's another form of sanewashing that's done in real time. It happens when interviewers allow outrageously false or offensive statements to slide without even minimal fact-checking or follow-up. Many people in politics benefit from the American media's reluctance to insist on truthfulness, but no one benefits more than Trump.
Does that really capture what Trump posted?
I raise this issue because I was just reading the transcript of a new Trump interview by Politico's Dasha Burns (free to read here). Burns clearly wants to get through her prepared list of questions and doesn't want to allow even a momentary questioning of Trump's non-facts to slow her progress. So she begins by asking about the prospects for a settlement of the war between Russia and Ukraine. After some back-and-forth, Trump says:
I ... I settled eight wars, and this ... I would’ve said this is the ninth. This would’ve been the easiest one, I would’ve said, or one of the easier ones. I mean, I settled one ... one that was going on for 36 years. Uh, I settled Pakistan and India. I settled so many wars. I’m very proud of it. And I do it pretty routinely, pretty easily. It’s not hard for me to do. It’s what I do. I make deals. Uh, this one is tough. One of the reasons is the level of hatred between Putin and Zelenskyy is tremendous.Trump hasn't "settled so many wars" -- of the eight he claims to have settled, most either weren't wars or haven't been settled. And it's not just that Trump "would've said" settling the Russia-Ukraine war was easy -- he literally said on more than one occasion that he'd settle the war in 24 hours.
Burns doesn't pause to correct him here or challenge him on the facts. And so the "eight wars" lie, in particular, is allowed to stand as undisputed.
Trump makes his usual claim that there wouldn't have been a Russia-Ukraine war if he'd been reelected in 2020. Eventually he wends his way to election trutherism -- and that goes unchallenged as well:
Trump: You know, think of it, if our election wasn’t rigged ... there was a rigged election. Now everyone knows it. It’s gonna come out over the next couple of months, too, loud and clear ’cause we have all the information and everything. But if the election wasn’t rigged [and stolen], uh, you wouldn’t even be talking about Ukraine right now.Burns simply moves on:
Burns: The resounding consensus in Europe right now is that they want to keep supporting Ukraine until they can win this war.And so Trump gets away with the big lie again.
Soon, Burns asks Trump about his administration's newly released national security strategy. She wants answers to specific questions -- will America intervene in the internal politics of European nations? will the U.S. intervene in European elections? -- and in order to get her answers, she lets Trump unleash a volley of anti-immigrant racism and says nothing:
Burns: Well, you ... your administration just released a new national security strategy that sent shockwaves throughout Europe. The strategy says a key pillar of American foreign policy should be “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.” How much should European leaders prepare for your administration to ... to push to reshape the continent’s politics?There were never "millions of people a month" crossing the U.S. border (the highest number of monthly encounters under Biden was 370,883). And Europe is, of course, not "allowing people just to come in and ... unchecked, unvetted." But Burns just moves on to her next question, which eventually leads to one of Trump's most (calculatedly) batshit pronouncements:
Trump: Well, Europe is a different place.
Burns: What do you mean by that?
Trump: And if it keeps going the way it’s going, Europe will not be ... in my opinion, uh, many of those countries will not be viable countries any longer. Their immigration policy is a disaster. What they’re doing with immigration is a disaster. Uh, we had a disaster coming, but I was able to stop it. You know, we have no people coming through our borders now, zero, seven months. I mean, who would believe zero? We went from millions of people — in some cases, millions of people a month — but millions of people to no people.
Burns: That’s not what Europe looks like.
Trump: The opposite. Yeah. Uh ... uh, no. Europe, they’re coming in from all parts of the world. Not just the Middle East, they’re coming in from the Congo, tremendous numbers of people coming from the Congo. And even worse, they’re coming from prisons of the Congo and many other countries. And for some reason, they want to be politically correct, which actually, I think is the opposite of politically correct. But they want to be politically correct, and they don’t want to send ’em back to where they came from.
And Europe is ... uh, if you take a look at Paris, it’s a much different place. I loved Paris. Uh, it’s a much different place than it was. If you take a look at London, you have a mayor named Khan. He’s a horrible mayor. He’s an incompetent mayor, but he’s a horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor. I think he’s done a terrible job. London’s a different place. I love London. I love London. And I hate to see it happen. You know, my roots are in Europe, as you know.
Burns: Right. Right.
Trump: And ... and I hate to see that happen. This is one of the great places in the world, and they’re allowing people just to come in and ... unchecked, unvetted.
Burns: So how involved are you going to get? I mean, could we see you getting involved in European elections, for example?This gets no response from Burns.
Trump: I want to run the United States. I don’t want to run Europe. I’m involved in Europe very much. Uh ...
Burns: Might you endorse candidates?
Trump: NATO calls me Daddy.
Trump repeatedly denounces immigration, in America and Europe, but later, in a conversation about the possibility of war with Venezuela, he says:
Trump: Well, one goal is I want the people of Venezuela to be treated well. I want the people of Venezuela, many of whom live in the United States, to be respected. I mean, they were tremendous to me. They voted for me 94 percent or something. I mean, it’s incredible. I own a big, uh, project, Doral. It’s a great place, Doral Country Club.In response to this, Burns -- a Ukrainian immigrant herself -- bestirs herself:
Burns: Been there.
Trump: Yeah. And it’s a, you know, very large, uh, place, beautiful place, right in the middle of they call it Little Venezuela. And I got to know the Venezuelan people very well because, uh, that I’ve owned it for a long time. And they’re unbelievable people. The area is such a successful area. Everybody is successful. It’s amazing. They say if a house is for sale for more than three days, there’s something wrong. I mean, a house ... if somebody wants to sell their house, they sell it in just a matter of moments. People love the area. And I got to know the people well. They’re incredible people. And they were treated horribly by Maduro.
Burns: And are those the kind of immigrants that you do want to see in America?Good question. Throughout the interview, Trump essentially says that America and Europe should have no immigration whatsoever, yet he praises Venezuelan immigrants in America because Venezuelan-Americans vote for him. (In fact, a plurality of Venezuelans in Florida voted for Kamala Harris, though a surprising number voted for Trump.)
Trump's response leads him to an unrelated lie -- which Burns never challenges.
Trump: Uh, well, they ... well, they certainly contrib ... yeah, I want to see people ... yeah, I want to see people that contribute. I don’t want to see Somalia. I don’t want to see a woman that, you know, marries her brother to get in and then becomes a congressman and does nothing but complain. All she does is complain, complain, complain, and yet her country’s a mess. You know, it’s, uh, one of the worst in the world. Uh, let her go back, fix up her own country.Snopes, The New York Times, and other outlets have found no evidence that Representative Ilhan Omar ever married her brother. But the right loves this rumor, and Burns lets it slide. She also never challenges Trump on the notion that America shouldn't accept immigrants or refugees from countries from poorly functioning governments, even though millions of us trace our ancestry to immigrants from nations that were failing to provide a good life for their citizens. (And what about those Venezuelans? Why doesn't Trump think they should go back and fix up their own country? Obviously it's because he thinks they all voted for him.)
Burns: Uh, I ...
Trump: So ...
Burns: ... yeah.
Burns also allows Trump to defend his boat bombings by saying, "And we save 25,000 people every time we knock out a boat. On average, they kill 25,000 Americans." There have been 22 boat strikes involving 23 vessels. If each boat strike saved 25,000 lives, that would be a total of 575,000 lives saved. But, in fact, the worst year from overdoses in America was 2022, in which there were 110,900 overdose deaths. To Burns's credit, she notes that the boats weren't carrying fentanyl, the drug that leads to the most overdose deaths in America, and notes, that it probably wasn't heading to the U.S. But Trump waves this off, and Burns abandons that line of questioning.
That's only a sample of what Burns could have challenged in this interview. I understand that Burns wouldn't have been allowed to continue the interview if she'd pushed Trump too forcefully. But Politico didn't have to publish the transcript without annotation.
In fact, Politico chose to provide one fact clarification in the transcript. It involves Politico itself:
Burns: Can you rule out an American ground invasion ...If Politico could provide this fact-check, it could have provided more fact-checks. But lying is considered part of Trump's brand, so it just isn't done. And that's sanewashing. But it's how we do political journalism in America.
Trump: I don’t want to ...
Burns: ... in Venezuela?
Trump: ... rule in or out. I don’t talk about it. Why would I talk to you, an extremely unfriendly publication, if you want to call it POLITICO, that got $8 million from Obama to keep it afloat, why would I do that? (Editor’s note: Trump appears to be referring to POLITICO Pro subscriptions that the Trump administration canceled earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to trim government spending. POLITICO received no government grants or subsidies.)
The best political interviewers in Britain and Europe treat questioning like a point in tennis - you keep hitting until the exchange is resolved. Nearly all American interviewers treat a question like a penalty kick in soccer - you have one shot, and if the interviewee deflects, that's it.
— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) December 7, 2025 at 10:36 PM
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